Healthy, Wealthy and Wise.

• Author: Guendner, Monika
• Position: Alternative medicine - Brief Article

Less than a dozen years ago, a doctor could jeopardize his license by prescribing an effective yet less expensive, less invasive and more natural therapy for the treatment of an illness. For example, it wasn't long ago that the Utah medical profession considered the recommendation of chelation therapy, an intravenous (IV) infusion that removes heavy metals and minerals from the body, as "unprofessional conduct," according to Rae Howard, owner of Good Earth food stores and a grassroots organizer who helped make it legal for doctors in Utah to use this complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Utahns open their minds and wallets to nontraditional remedies

Nationally, Americans spend S27 billion annually in preventative and therapeutic alternative treatments, such as massage therapy, yoga, kinesiology (the study of the movement of the muscles), homeopathic therapy, acupuncture, energy healing, aromatherapy and dietary manipulations. Similarly, Utah residents are turning to nontraditional solutions to health problems and opening their wallets to pay for them.

"By the time patients come to us, they've already decided on alternative medicine," says registered dietician Barbara Sweeny, of patients seeking CAM therapies at the office of Provo-based holistic M.D., Dennis Remington. What they want, according to Sweeny, is not just a bandage on the illness, but a solution to its cause.

That may include therapies such as Reiki, an energy healing therapy offered at Elizabeth Williams' Dynamic Touch Healing Arts Center in Salt Lake City. With Reiki, the therapist puts her hands on someone to "balance their energy," with results similar to jump-starting a dead battery. Williams cannot explain the basis for the change in energy in her clients, just as she cannot explain the physics of electricity, but, she says, "I know that it works, so I do it."

This is a common example of the enigma of CAMs - a faith in the therapies by those who use them, but little "Western" analysis to substantiate the results. Faith, however, is not enough for insurance companies to cover procedures beyond chiropractic therapy. Brad Parkin of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Utah points out that demand from members for alternative therapies has not been significant enough to incorporate in health insurance plans. "Individually, there's a demand (for coverage of alternative medicines)," he says, "but collaboratively there isn't."

As the supplier of health insurance to one in four...